The Gargoyle Gets His Girl by Kristen Painter

Author:Kristen Painter [Painter, Kristen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Goodreads: 25859978
Published: 2014-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Willa’s wrists and ankles were secured with duct tape. Another strip sealed her mouth. As the van lurched forward, she braced her feet on the door to keep from sliding. If the rust spots were any indication, it was an old vehicle. The square windows on the back doors were painted over, and the inside carried the musty smell of dirt and oil and metal. Or maybe that was the crummy piece of carpet covering the van floor.

Nick lay beside her, staring up at the van’s stripped-down ceiling. Wires stuck out where a light had once been.

“Nick,” she whispered behind the tape. It didn’t come out like much more than a soft, unintelligible word, but he was smart enough to figure out she was trying to get his attention.

No response.

He’d been like that since Zane had told him to get in, lie down and shut up. It had to have something to do with the cuff bracelet Zane had clamped on him. It made her think of the one Sheriff Merrow had described finding on Martin Burnside, which made sense. Clearly, it was some kind of controlling device. So why not put one on her?

She thought it through. Martin was a rock troll. Nick was a gargoyle. Creatures whose true natures were born of stone.

They hadn’t put a bracelet on her because it would have no effect on any creature who wasn’t born of stone or metal. But a bracelet like that could have only been created by a fae with the same abilities she had. Another lapidus. Zane? Maybe. They shared the same parents. If he was telling the truth. He did look a little like her father if memory served her right.

She lifted her bound hands to touch Nick’s arm and mumbled his name again.

This time he looked at her.

Had touching him made the difference? She dug a fingernail under the edge of the duct tape covering her mouth and peeled the tape back enough so she could talk, then she wrapped her fingers around Nick’s forearm near his elbow, the same arm that wore the bracelet. It was like holding on to warm stone. “Are you okay?”

He shook his head that he wasn’t.

“In pain?”

Another silent no. She was glad he wasn’t hurt.

“The bracelet is doing this to you. Can you fight it?”

He shook his head, his gaze slanting toward his wrist, but not before she caught a distant spark of anger.

The van bumped over something, jostling her away from him. She wriggled back across the carpet remnant, getting close enough to make contact with him again. This time, she touched the bracelet. The second her fingers came into contact with it, magic vibrated off the cuff. The metal was doused with it, thicker and stronger than anything she’d felt before. She whispered the confirmation to Nick, although she was sure he already knew it too. “Fae magic.”

He nodded.

She pried at it, but it didn’t budge. Not that she had any kind of leverage. She tried again, unable to even get her fingers under it.

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